THE  “PROTOCOLS 
BOLSHEVISM 
AND  THE  JEWS 


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v/ 

THE  “  PROTOCOLS  ” 
BOLSHEVISM 
AND  THE  JEWS 


An  Address 
to  Their  Fellow-Citizens  by 
American  Jewish  Organizations 

Published  December  1,  1920 


NEW  YORK 

E  AMERICAN  JEWISH  COMMITTEE 


THE  AMERICAN  JEWISH  COMMITTEE 

A  national  organization  instituted  in  1906  and 
incorporated  by  an  act  of  the  New  York  State 
Legislature  in  1911,  “to  prevent  the  infraction  of 
the  civil  and  religious  rights  of  Jews  in  all  parts 
of  the  world;  to  render  all  lawful  assistance  and 
to  take  appropriate  remedial  action  in  the  event 
of  threatened  or  actual  invasion  or  restriction  of 
such  rights,  or  of  unfavorable  discrimination  with 
respect  thereto;  to  secure  for  Jews  equality  of 
economic,  social  and  educational  opportunity;  to 
alleviate  the  consequences  of  persecution  and  to 
afford  relief  from  calamities  affecting  Jews  wherever 
they  may  occur.” 


THE  AMERICAN  JEWISH  COMMITTEE 


Officers  and  Executive  Committee 


PRESIDENT 

Louis  Marshall 

VICE-PRESIDENTS 

Cyrus  Adler  Julius  Rosenwald 


TREASURER 

Isaac  W.  Bernheim 


EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE 


Cyrus  Adler,  Chairman 

Isaac  W.  Bernheim _ 

Samuel  Dorf. 

Abram  I.  Elkus . 

Albert  D.  Lasker . 

Irving  Lehman . 

Louis  Marshall _ 

A.  C.  Ratshesky . 

Julius  Rosenwald . 

Horace  Stern . 

Oscar  S.  Straus . 

Cyrus  L.  Sulzberger  . . . 

Mayer  Sulzberger . 

Isaac  M.  Ullman . 

A.  Leo  Weil . 


. Philadelphia 

.......  Louisville 

.  New  York  City 
o  .New  York  City 
.  . . .  ....  Chicago 

.  .New  York  City 
.  .New  York  City 

. Boston 

. Chicago 

. Philadelphia 

.  .  New  York  City 
.  .New  York  City 

. Philadelphia 

. New  Haven 

. Pittsburg 


ASSISTANT  SECRETARY 

Harry  Schneiderman 
31  Union  Square  W.,  New  York  City 


3 


TO  OUR  FELLOW  CITIZENS: 


During  the  war,  by  secret  agencies,  a  docu¬ 
ment  variously  called  “The  Procotols  of  the 
Elders  of  Zion,”  “The  Protocols  of  the  Meet¬ 
ings  of  the  Zionist  Men  of  Wisdom,”  and 
“The  Protocols  of  the  Wise  Men  of  Zion,” 
was  clandestinely  circulated,  in  typewritten 
form,  among  public  officials  and  carefully 
selected  civilians,  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
rise  to  the  belief  that  the  Jews,  in  conjunc¬ 
tion  with  Freemasons,  had  been  for  centuries 
engaged  in  a  conspiracy  to  produce  revolu¬ 
tion  and  anarchy,  by  means  of  which  they 
hoped  to  attain  the  control  of  the  world  by 
the  establishment  of  some  sort  of  despotic 
rule.  Some  months  ago  this  document  was 
published  in  England.  More  recently  it 
has  appeared  in  print  in  the  United  States 
and  thousands  of  copies  have  been  circulated 
with  an  air  of  mystery  among  legislators, 
journalists,  clergymen  and  teachers,  members 
of  clubs,  and  indiscriminately  to  the  gen¬ 
eral  public.  The  London  Morning  Post  has 
given  out  a  series  of  articles  as  a  commentary 
upon  The  Protocols,  in  which  the  charge  of 
an  unholy  conspiracy  between  Jews  and 
Freemason:  is  elaborated,  and  Bolshevism  is 
characterized  as  a  movement  of,  for  and  by 
the  Jews  and  is  declared  to  be  a  fulfilment 
of  The  Protocols.  These  articles,  whose 
authorship  is  not  disclosed,  have  now  ap¬ 
peared  in  book  form  under  the  title  “The 
Cause  of  World  Unrest.”  During  the  past 
six  months  there  have  been  sent  forth  weekly 
in  Henry  Ford’s  organ,  The  Dearborn  Inde¬ 
pendent ,  attacks  of  extraordinary  virulence 
upon  the  Jews.  These  assaults  upon  the 
honor  of  the  Jewish  people  are  all  founded 
on  The  Protocols  and  on  the  discredited 


5 


literature  of  Russian  and  German  anti- 
Semitism,  inspired  by  the  minions  of  autoc¬ 
racy.  )  Parrot-like  they  repeat  the  abomi¬ 
nable  charges  that  can  only  appeal  to  the 
credulity  of  a  stunted  intelligence — charges 
long  since  conceded  to  be  unfounded  by  all 
fair-minded  men.  Ford  is  employing  his 
great  wealth  in  scattering  broadcast  his  ful- 
minations,  regardless  of  consequences. 

When  the  Jews  of  the  United  States  first 
learned  of  these  malevolent  prints,  they 
deemed  it  beneath  their  dignity  to  take 
notice  of  them  because  they  regarded  them 
as  a  mere  recrudescence  of  mediaeval  bigotry 
and  stupidity  showing  upon  their  face  their 
utter  worthlessness.  These  publications 
have,  however,  been  put  in  circulation  to 
such  an  extent  that  it  is  believed  that  the 
time  has  come,  humiliating  though  it  be  to 
them,  for  the  Jews  to  make  answer  to  these 
libels  and  to  the  unworthy  insinuations  and 
innuendoes  that  have  been  whispered  against 
them. 

Speaking  as  representatives  of  the  Jewish 
people,  familiar  with  the  history  of  Judaism 
in  its  various  phases  and  with  the  movements, 
past  and  present,  in  Jewish  life,  we  say  with 
all  solemnity: 

(1)  The  Protocols  are  a  base  forgery. 
There  has  never  been  an  organization  of 
Jews  known  as  The  Elders  of  Zion,  or  The 
Zionist  Men  of  Wisdom,  or  The  Wise  Men 
of  Zion,  or  bearing  any  other  similar  name. 
There  has  never  existed  a  secret  or  other 
Jewish  body  organized  for  any  purpose  such 
as  that  implied  in  The  Protocols.  The  Jew¬ 
ish  people  have  never  dreamed  of  a  Jewish 
dictatorship,  of  a  destruction  of  religion,  of 
an  interference  with  industrial  prosperity, 
or  of  an  overthrow  of  civilization.  The  Jews 
have  never  conspired  with  the  Freemasons, 
or  with  any  other  body,  for  any  purpose. 


6 


From  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  the 
Temple  at  Jerusalem  by  Titus,  the  Jews  have 
had  no  political  state.  For  centuries  they 
were  forced  to  wander  from  land  to  land,  to 
flee  for  refuge  wherever  they  might  find  it 
against  bitter  persecution.  They  were  pent 
up  in  ghettoes,  were  deprived  of  even  the 
shadow  of  civil  or  political  rights,  and  were 
made  the  objects  of  every  possible  form  of 
discrimination.  It  is  little  more  than  fifty 
years  since  the  Jews  of  Western  Europe  be¬ 
came  politically  emancipated.  Until  the 
outbreak  of  the  World  War  the  Jews  of 
Eastern  Europe,  constituting  a  majority  of 
all  the  Jews  of  the  world,  were  not  even  per¬ 
mitted  to  exercise  the  rights  of  citizenship 
in  lands  where  they  and  their  ancestors  had 
dwelt  for  generations.  The  great  mass  of 
the  Jews  were  hampered  in  every  way  in 
their  efforts  to  earn  a  livelihood.  Far  from 
desiring  to  govern  the  world,  they  were  con¬ 
tent  with  the  opportunity  to  live.  Numer¬ 
ically  they  constitute  less  than  one  per  cent, 
of  the  population  of  the  earth;  and  more 
than  one-half  of  them  are  on  the  verge  of 
starvation.  The  suggestion  that,  in  their 
feebleness,  they  have  been  planning  in 
secret  conclave  to  seize  absolute  power  and 
to  dominate  the  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of 
non-Jews  upon  the  globe  is  a  ridiculous  in¬ 
vention  than  which  even  madness  can  con¬ 
jure  nothing  more  preposterous. 

Where  is  the  habitat  of  these  so-called 
Elders  of  Zion,  by  whatever  name  they  may 
be  called?  Who  are  these  hidden  sages? 
Whence  do  they  come?  What  is  the  nature 
of  their  organization?  The  distributors  of 
The  Protocols  are  silent  on  that  subject. 
Whence  come  these  pretended  Protocols? 
There  have  been  various  versions.  One 
Serge  Nilus,  of  whose  identity  little  is 
known,  a  Russian  mystic  and  an  ardent 


7 


supporter  of  Czarism,  claims  to  have  re¬ 
ceived  them  in  Russia,  in  1901,  in  manu¬ 
script  form,  from  a  Russian  office-holder, 
who  stated  that  the  manuscript  had  been 
originally  obtained  by  a  lady,  whose  name 
is  not  given,  and  who,  he  said,  obtained 
them  in  a  mysterious  way.  In  what  lan¬ 
guage  they  were  written  is  not  stated. 
Where  that  manuscript  now  is  does  not 
appear.  Nilus  asserts  that  he  submitted 
The  Protocols  to  one  of  the  Russian  Grand 
Dukes,  who,  after  examination,  returned 
them  with  the  despairing  message:  “Too 
late.”  Apparently  there  was  no  room  for 
them  in  the  Russian  archives,  and  they 
suggested  no  task  for  the  Czar’s  ubiquitous 
police  to  perform.  In  1905,  Nilus  published 
at  Tsarskoje  Selo  a  second  edition  of  a 
mystical  book  entitled  “The  Great  in  the 
Little,”  the  first  edition  having  been  pub¬ 
lished  in  1901.  Into  this  later  edition  he 
incorporated  for  the  first  time  The  Proto¬ 
cols,  which  he  claimed  to  have  had  in  his 
possession  for  four  years.  In  January, 
1917,  he  published  another  book  under  the 
title  “It  is  Near,  at  the  Door,”  purporting 
to  foretell  “the  coming  of  the  Anti-Christ 
and  the  Kingdom  of  the  Devil  on  Earth.” 
In  this  book  he  announces  that  he  had  only 
then  learned  authoritatively  from  Jewish 
sources  (what  they  were  is  not  explained) 
that  these  Protocols  were  nothing  other 
than  a  strategic  plan  for  the  conquest  of 
the  world,  of  putting  it  under  the  yoke  of 
Israel,  “the  struggler-against-God,”  a  plan 
worked  out  by  the  leaders  of  the  Jewish 
people  during  the  many  centuries  of  their 
dispersion,  and  finally  presented  to  the 
Council  of  Elders  by  the  Prince  of  Exile, 
Theodor  Herzl,  at  the  time  of  the  first 
Zionist  Congress  summoned  by  him  at 
Basle  in  August,  1897.  He  declared  that 


8 


The  Protocols  were  signed  by  the  Zionist 
representatives  of  the  thirty-third  degree  of 
initiation;  that  they  were  secretly  removed 
from  the  complete  file  of  Protocols  that  per¬ 
tained  to  the  first  Zionist  Congress;  that 
they  were  taken  from  the  secret  vaults  at 
the  main  Zionist  office,  which,  it  is  said,  4 ‘at 
present  is  located  in  French  territory.” 

The  Protocols  as  published  bear  no  signa¬ 
tures.  The  identity  of  the  Zionist  represen¬ 
tatives  by  whom  they  are  claimed  to  have 
been  signed  is  left  untold.  The  location  of 
the  main  Zionist  office  and  of  the  secret 
vaults  from  which  The  Protocols  were 
secretly  removed  remains  a  secret.  It  is, 
however,  a  matter  of  history  that  the  first 
Zionist  Congress  was  publicly  held  by  Jews 
who  came  from  various  parts  of  Europe  for 
the  purpose  of  considering  the  misery  of 
their  brethren  in  Eastern  Europe  and  of 
enabling  them  to  find  shelter  in  the  Holy 
Land.  Theodor  Herzl  was  a  distinguished 
journalist,  a  man  of  true  nobility  of  charac¬ 
ter.  He  presided  at  the  Congress,  all  of 
whose  deliberations  were  held  in  the  light 
of  day.  The  insinuation  that  there  was  a 
thirty-third,  or  any  other,  degree  of  initia¬ 
tion  in  this  organization  is  merely  a  malicious 
effort  to  bring  the  Jews  into  parallelism  with 
the  Freemasons  and  thus  to  subject  them  to 
all  the  fanciful  and  fantastic  charges  that 
have  from  time  to  time  been  laid  at  the  door 
of  Freemasonry,  oblivious  of  the  fact  that 
fifteen  Presidents  of  the  United  States,  in¬ 
cluding  Washington,  and  many  of  the  lead¬ 
ing  statesmen  of  Europe  and  America,  have 
been  members  of  that  order. 

Nilus  and  his  associates  belonged  to  the 
Russian  bureaucracy.  In  1905,  through  the 
Black  Hundreds,  that  body  sought  in  every 
way  to  crush  the  Jews  and  to  prevent  the 
liberalization  of  the  government.  The  time 


9 


was  propitious  for  the  perpetration  of  a 
political  forgery  by  a  government  that 
habitually  resorted  to  the  employment  of 
agents  provocateurs ,  a  government  which  only 
a  few  years  later,  against  the  protest  of  the 
enlightened  clergy  of  the  world,  ineffectually 
sought  to  convict  Mendel  Beilis  on  the 
charge  of  ritual  murder.  It  is  significant 
that  one  of  his  prosecutors  has  been  active 
in  distributing  manuscript  copies  of  The 
Protocols  throughout  the  United  States. 

Irrespective  of  this  history,  bristling  with 
suspicion,  an  analysis  of  The  Protocols  shows 
that  on  their  face  they  are  a  fabrication  and 
that  they  must  have  emanated  from  the 
bitter  opponents  of  democracy.  They  are 
replete  with  cynical  references  to  the  French 
Revolution,  and  to  the  conceptions  of  liberty, 
equality  and  fraternity.  They  uphold  privi¬ 
lege  and  autocracy.  They  belittle  education. 
They  condemn  religious  liberty.  They 
assert  that  political  freedom  is  an  idea  and 
not  a  fact,  and  that  the  doctrine  that  a  gov¬ 
ernment  is  nothing  but  a  steward  of  the 
people  is  a  mere  phrase.  These  are  the  very 
doctrines  that  one  would  expect  from  the 
protagonists  of  autocracy.  Nothing  can  be 
more  foreign  to  Jewish  thought  and  aspira¬ 
tion  than  these  brutal  theories  of  reaction. 
That  the  Jews,  whose  very  life  has  been  a 
prayer  for  the  blessings  of  liberty  and  equal¬ 
ity,  should  hold  them  in  contempt  is  un¬ 
thinkable. 

The  document  throughout  is  farcical  in  its 
absurdities.  In  the  Russian  original  there 
is  a  passage,  significantly  omitted  from  the 
translation,  to  the  effect  that  the  English 
are  the  descendants  of  the  Lost  Tribes  of 
Israel  and  the  British  Government  is  vio¬ 
lently  attacked  for  its  liberalism.  If  climax 
there  be  to  all  this  folly,  it  lies  in  the  idea 
set  forth  in  The  Protocols  that  “the  world 


10 


ruler  is  to  spring  from  the  dynastic  roots  of 
King  David”  and  that  “the  King  of  Israel 
will  become  the  real  Pope  of  the  Universe 
and  the  Patriarch  of  the  International 
Church,”  whatever  that  may  mean. 

It  is  needless,  however,  to  elaborate,  when 
one  considers  that  the  editor  of  the  London 
Morning  Post ,  in  his  introduction  to  “The 
Cause  of  the  World  Unrest,”  himself  doubts 
the  genuineness  of  The  Protocols,  and  that 
the  anonymous  author  of  that  book,  after 
using  them  as  his  text,  is  unable  to  give 
them  any  higher  certificate  than  that  they 
may  or  may  not  be  genuine.  Indeed,  he 
goes  so  far  as  to  say: 

“We  have  said  that  this  document  flashes 
a  blaze  of  light,  and  so  it  does,  but  whether 
this  document  is  genuine  or  not,  whether 
the  blaze  of  light  is  true  or  false,  can  only 
be  judged  by  internal  evidence  and  proba¬ 
bilities.  We  may  say  at  once  that  Nilus 
advances  nothing  in  the  nature  of  real 
evidence  to  prove  the  document,  and  that 
his  account  of  how  it  came  into  his  hands 
consists  of  assertion  only,  without  evidence 
to  support  it.” 

And  yet  a  document,  thus  discredited  by 
its  sponsors,  is  made  the  basis  of  an  indict¬ 
ment  against  an  entire  people. 

(2)  The  contention  that  the  genuineness 
of  The  Protocols  is  established  by  the  out¬ 
break  of  Bolshevism  in  Russia  twelve  years 
after  their  publication,  and  that  Bolshevism 
is  a  Jewish  movement,  is  absurd  in  theory 
and  absolutely  untrue  in  fact.  As  well 
might  it  be  said  that  a  forged  deed  is  genuine 
because  twenty  years  after  its  date  a  relative 
of  the  person  whose  name  is  forged  is  falsely 
charged  with  being  a  disturber  of  the  peace. 

To  say  that  the  Jews  are  responsible  for 
Bolshevism  is  a  deliberate  falsehood.  The 
originators  of  Bolshevism  were  exclusively 

11 


non- Jews.  While  it  is  true  that  there  are 
Jews  among  the  Bolshevists,  notably  Trot¬ 
sky,  they  represent  a  small  fraction  of  the 
Jews  and  of  the  followers  of  Bolshevism. 
Lenine,  who  belonged  to  the  Russian  aris¬ 
tocracy  and  has  not  a  drop  of  Jewish  blood 
in  his  veins,  was  the  creator  as  he  has  been 
the  motive  power  of  the  Soviets.  Tchicherin, 
who  has  conducted  their  foreign  affairs, 
Bucharin,  Krassin  and  Kalinin,  all  non- 
Jews,  are,  with  Lenine,  the  brains  of  the 
Communist  Party. 

The  Bolshevist  cabinet,  known  as  the 
People’s  Commissars,  consists  of  twenty 
members,  of  whom  Trotsky  and  Sverdlov 
are  the  only  Jews,  and  they  are  Jews  merely 
by  birth.  Of  the  Central  Committee  of 
the  Communist  Party,  including  Trotsky, 
there  are  four  Jews  out  of  thirteen.  The 
so-called  Extraordinary  Commission,  whose 
function  it  is  to  suppress  opposition  to  the 
Bolshevist  regime  from  within,  is  directed 
by  a  triumvirate  consisting  of  a  Pole  and 
two  Letts,  none  of  whom  is  of  Jewish  origin. 
Although  Trotsky  is  the  head  of  the  War 
Department,  his  General  Staff  is  composed 
exclusively  of  non- Jews. 

In  ‘‘The  Cause  of  World  Unrest”  a  list  of 
fifty  names  is  given,  most  of  whom  are 
classified  as  Jews  and  Bolshevists,  in  order 
to  establish  the  thesis  that  “nearly  all  of 
the  Bolshevist  leaders  are  Jews.”  An  exam¬ 
ination  of  the  list  shows  that  ten  of  the  Jews 
included  in  the  list  are  the  leaders  of  the 
anti-Bolshevist  movement  in  Russia;  that 
a  number  of  those  who  are  classified  in  the 
list  as  Jews  are  not  Jews  at  all;  that  a  large 
proportion  of  those  classified  as  Jews  are 
men  who  are  so  obscure  and  hold  positions 
so  inconspicuous  that  whether  or  not  they 
are  Jews  is  not  only  uncertain  but  unim¬ 
portant.  They  are  certainly  not  leaders. 


12 


On  the  other  hand,  the  leaders  of  the 
Mensheviki,  who  are  the  sworn  foes  -  of 
Bolshevism,  are  to  a  large  extent  Jews. 
Among  the  chiefs  of  the  Constitutional  Demo¬ 
cratic  Party  of  Russia,  who  are  strongly  op¬ 
posed  to  the  Soviets,  are  Vinaver,  Sliosberg, 
Pasmanik,  Kaminka,  Landau  and  Friedman, 
all  prominent  Jews.  Among  the  leaders  of 
the  People’s  Socialist,  the  Socialist  Revolu¬ 
tionary,  and  the  Menshevik  section  of  the 
Social  Democratic  parties,  bitter  opponents 
of  the  Bolsheviks,  are  a  large  number  of 
Jews.  The  leading  anti-Bolshevist  news¬ 
papers,  which  of  necessity  are  published 
outside  of  Russia,  have  Jews  upon  their 
editorial  staffs.  An  overwhelming  majority 
of  Russian  Jews  have  been  ruined  by  the 
coercive  measures  of  the  Soviets.  They 
have  submitted  to  the  confiscation  of  their 
property  and  are  undergoing  unspeakable 
hardships.  The  Orthodox  Jews,  whose 
numbers  preponderate,  remaining  loyal  to 
the  faith  of  their  fathers,  regard  the  Bolshe¬ 
viks  as  the  enemies  of  all  religion,  and, 
therefore,  hold  the  doctrines  of  Bolshevism 
in  abhorrence.  With  comparatively  few 
exceptions  the  Jews  are  looked  upon  by  the 
Bolsheviks  as  belonging  to  the  hated  bour¬ 
geoisie  and  as  favoring  capitalism.  The 
Zionists,  who  constitute  a  numerous  and 
important  element  of  the  Jews  of  Russia, 
have  been  denounced  by  the  Soviets  as 
counter-revolutionary,  and  many  of  them, 
have  been  cast  into  prison  and  threatened 
with  death — Zionists,  we  repeat,  who  are  the 
followers  of  Herzl. 

If  the  Jews  are  to  be  condemned  because 
of  a  Trotsky,  who  has  never  in  the  slightest 
degree  concerned  himself  with  Judaism  or 
the  welfare  of  the  Jews,  then  there  is  not  a 
people  that  has  ever  lived  that  might  not 
with  equal  right  be  condemned  because  in 


13 


its  membership  there  were  men  who  are 
alleged  to  have  advocated  hateful  doctrines. 
The  Jew  has  traditionally  stood  for  religion, 
law,  order,  the  family,  and  the  right  of 
property.  It  is,  therefore,  the  height  of 
cruelty  to  charge  him  with  responsibility 
for  Bolshevism,  when  its  doctrines,  should 
they  prevail,  would  inevitably  lead  to  the 
destruction  of  Judaism.  It  is  especially  a 
brutal  charge  when  one  considers  all  that 
the  Jew  has  suffered  from  the  oppressive  and 
discriminatory  laws  of  Russian  autocracy 
and  from  its  effort  to  suppress  every  aspir¬ 
ation  that  the  Jew  had  for  freedom.  It  is 
a  great  tribute  to  the  patriotism  of  the 
Russian  Jews  that,  in  spite  of  the  indignities 
that  they  had  to  undergo,  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  them  fought  under  the  banner 
of  the  Czar,  loyally  and  gallantly,  and  in 
large  numbers  laid  down  their  lives  in  the 
Allied  cause.  The  rosters  of  the  army  and 
navy  of  the  United  States  contain  the 
names  of  tens  of  thousands  of  Jews  born  in 
Russia  who  served  so  faithfully  under  our 
colors  that  they  gained  the  unqualified 
approval  of  their  officers,  and  proportion¬ 
ately  many  of  them  were  awarded  decora¬ 
tions  of  honor  by  a  grateful  country. 

We  have  refrained  from  commenting  on 
the  libels  contained  in  The  Dearborn  Inde¬ 
pendent.  Ford,  in  the  fulness  of  his  knowl¬ 
edge,  unqualifiedly  declares  The  Protocols 
.to  be  genuine  and  argues  that  practically 
every  Jew  is  a  Bolshevist.  We  have  dealt 
sufficiently  with  both  of  these  falsehoods. 
It  is  useless  in  a  serious  document  to  analyze 
the  puerile  and  venomous  drivel  that  he  has 
derived  from  the  concoctions  of  professional 
agitators.  He  is  merely  a  dupe. 

What  is  the  motive  of  those  who  have 
set  in  motion  this  new  onslaught  of  anti- 
Semitism?  It  is  the  motive  that  again  and 


14 


again  has  actuated  autocracy  and  its  adroit 
supporters — that  of  seeking  a  scapegoat  for 
their  own  sins,  so  that  they  may  be  enabled 
under  the  cover  of  a  false  issue  to  deceive 
the  public. 

It  is  an  attempt  to  drive  into  the  solidarity 
of  the  citizenry  of  our  country  that  has  been 
its  pride  and  its  strength  the  wedge  of  dis¬ 
cord,  by  arousing  suspicion  and  inciting 
overt  acts  not  only  against  those  of  Jewish 
origin  but  also  against  Freemasons,  in  the 
hope  of  discrediting  free  government  in  the 
eyes  of  the  European  masses  and  thus  facili¬ 
tate  the  restoration  of  absolutism  in  gov¬ 
ernment. 

The  Protocols  were  manufactured  in  Rus¬ 
sia  under  the  bureaucracy,  and  the  ammuni¬ 
tion  with  which  the  campaign  is  conducted 
has  been  furnished  out  of  the  arsenal  of 
imperialistic  Germany  and  by  those  who  are 
seeking  to  restore  the  Hapsburgs,  the  Hohen- 
zollerns,  and  the  Romanoffs  on  their  former 
thrones.  Ancient  hatred  and  unreasoning 
prejudice  and  a  failure  to  understand  and 
know  what  the  Jew  really  is,  are  likewise 
responsible  for  the  readiness  with  which 
these  falsehoods  have  been  accepted  by  those 
who  are  ever  willing  to  believe  evil  of  their 
fellow-men. 

W  e  have  an  abiding  confidence  in  the 
spirit  of  justice  and  fairness  that  permeates 
the  true  American,  and  we  are  satisfied  that 
our  fellow-citizens  will  not  permit  the  cam¬ 
paign  of  slander  and  libel  that  has  been 
launched  against  us  to  go  unreproved. 
There  is  enough  for  all  of  us  to  do  in  the 
great  task  of  building  up  our  common 
country  and  of  developing  the  principles 
on  which  it  is  founded.  Let  not  hatred 
and  misunderstanding  arise  where  peace  and 
harmony,  unity  and  brotherliness,  are  re¬ 
quired  to  perpetuate  all  that  America  rep- 

15 


resents  and  to  enable  all  men  to  know  that 
within  her  wide  boundaries  there  is  no  room 
for  injustice  and  intolerance. 


THE  AMERICAN  JEWISH  COMMITTEE 

By  Louis  Marshall,  President 
Cyrus  Adler  and  Julius  Rosen wald,  Vice-Presid 
Isaac  W.  Bernheim,  Treasurer 


Executive  Committee 


Samuel  Dorf 
Abram  I.  Elkus 
Albert  D.  Lasker 
Irving  Lehman 
A.  C.  Ratshesky 
Horace  Stern 


Oscar  S.  Straus 
Cyrus  L.  Sulzbe: 
Mayer  Sulzberg 
Isaac  M.  Ullma 
A.  Leo  Weil 


THE  ZIONIST  ORGANIZATION  OF  AMERi 

By  Julian  W.  Mack,  President 
Jacob  de  Haas,  Secretary 

THE  UNION  OF  AMERICAN  HEBRE1 
CONGREGATIONS 

By  J.  Walter  Freiberg,  President 
George  Zepin,  Secretary 

THE  UNION  OF  ORTHODOX  JEWISHU 
CONGREGATIONS 

By  Herbert  S.  Goldstein,  Secretary 

THE  UNITED  SYNAGOGUE  OF  AMERI< 

By  Elias  L.  Solomon,  President 
Charles  I.  Hoffman,  Secretary 

THE  PROVISIONAL  ORGANIZATION  Fd 
AMERICAN  JEWISH  CONGRESS 

By  Nathan  Straus,  President 
Morris  Rothenberg,  Chairman,  Executive  Com| 

Stephen  S.  Wise 
Bernard  G.  Richards,  Secretary 


THE  INDEPENDENT  ORDER  OF  B’NAI 
AND  THE  ANTI-DEFAMATION  LEAGII 

By  Adolf  Kraus,  President 


THE  CENTRAL  CONFERENCE  OF 
AMERICAN  RABBIS 

By  Leo  M.  Franklin,  President 
Felix  A.  Levy,  Secretary 

THE  RABBINICAL  ASSEMBLY  OF  THE  j; 
THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

By  Max  D.  Klein,  President 
Samuel  Fredman,  Secretary 

THE  UNION  OF  ORTHODOX  RABBIS 
UNITED  STATES  AND  CANADA 
By  M.  S.  Margolies,  President 


Vb  VVdrY*! Tu! 


16 


